


gradually.

by WonderAss



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Canon, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Porn, Blood Kink, Blood and Gore, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Erotic Violence, Existentialism, Eye Contact, Fighting Kink, Healing Sex, Kinktober, Light Dom/sub, M/M, POV Multiple, References to Canon, Sad then sweet, Shameless Smut, Soulmates, Surreal Smut, Switching, Tagging This As, Tending to Wounds, and the symbolism nears critical mass, android gore, both are healing each other in opposite ways, both are hurt with similar injuries, if only because I'm publishing kink fics in October
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 06:59:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16192469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderAss/pseuds/WonderAss
Summary: The former RK1000, reunited years after their creation with loneliness to spare, continues to struggle through the unique perspectives and responsibilities of two separate lives. Despite the violence written into their code and haunting their days, Markus and Connor slowly, gradually, make their way back to harmony.a standalone fic that also functions as a sequel to 'finally.'





	gradually.

**Author's Note:**

> Song Inspirations: "Radars" by Alina Libkind + "Absolute Reprise" by midnight

_"That famous deviant hunter. We are thousands and you are **alone**."_

_The vacant lot isn't without its resources. Even reeling from internal damage the damned RK800 hits just as hard, his next punch snapping Markus's head to one side and sending him stumbling right into the concrete wall. He grabs at it for leverage and feels his hand curl around the handle of a locked back door. Preconstructions wind through the pale glow of parking lighting. He could open it and continue the chase somewhere inside or atop the roof...or he can end it, here and now. The handle is an old model, the kind that twists, and he wrenches it off just as Connor's fist goes right through the door a centimeter from his head. Close enough for Markus to drive the four-inch metal point of the doorknob through his chest._

_It's an inch away from the beating heart he was aiming for, but deep enough to make Connor's mouth twist with approximated pain. Pale hands grab his forearm, clench with deceptive strength. He'll hold him here and end it, either by breaking a bone or yanking out tendons. Markus stamps a foot into his stomach and shoves the hunter away, losing both his weapon and balance in the process. Connor's marble exterior finally cracks as he tugs the doorknob out and sends it clattering and sliding across the wet gravel. It's convincing. Almost as convincing as a deviant's._

_"I won't let you hurt one more android." His gun may be out of bullets and his knife buried in Connor's back, but Markus still has his hands. "No **more**."_

_It's only a matter of time. He's waited too long for this, worked too hard for this._

_"One more." Connor responds, bland as snow, and advances._

"Markus?"

_Biocomponent #1101f self-repair protocol halted. Immediate resolution required._ The error message blurs when a smudged hand reaches down to rest on his cheek and pet beneath his eye.

"...There you go." Connor's bedside manner is putting a nurse to shame, careless of what the system scan he's already completed is saying. "I've stopped the bleeding and redirected the surge through your primary tendons. How is your throat feeling?"

Markus still can't verbalize through the hole in his neck, but he communicates plenty by pushing his face into Connor's stained palm. The thumb continues to rub the freckles beneath his eyes. Something wet smudges around, slippery, cool, synthetic skin thin and hypersensitive from redirected energy from pain from-

_A blocked kick. A deflected punch. A shove that's grappled._

_They grab and twist, the RK800's reconstruction matching his preconstruction with infuriating accuracy. Markus The Orator doesn't lose his cool, Markus The Peacemaker doesn't give in to rage, except he does now, wanting nothing more than to finish this, for this chase to finally fucking be **over**. Connor redirects his tackle by hunching beneath him and lifting up, momentarily turning the lot upside down. When Markus hits the ground and something in his shell splits, sending a strip of thirium curving a foot away and lighting up the space with red error text. By the time he's wrestled gravity into compliance and swayed back onto his feet the hunter has closed the gap again, swiping down for his neck with a claw grip. He tries to give voice to another threat -- one of how little Connor matters to his superiors, the CyberLife circuit at large -- but his voice clips and scatters, like his throat got torn clean out._

_Hot blue spills beneath his chin and splatters through his groping fingers at his feet. Snow steams blue into the air. A quick system scan halts halfway from a lack of available energy, but it's enough: it had been._

_"I always accomplish my mission."_

_Markus waves a useless blue hand in the air as Connor-_

-starts to pull away to continue poking machine tools into his neck, then lets out a tight little sound when Markus claws at his hand with dirty nails. It's not a physical pain -- not entirely -- but emotional, sympathetic and morose. Is it because he hurt him? It's because he hurt him. Because he's a deviant, and _he's_ a deviant, and-

"It's okay. Shh, shh." He shushes like a nurse, too, when Markus tries to fold and press his throat into words and coughs more static. Fingers move beneath his jaw and push a biocomponent he has a hard time putting a name to, but an error message vanishes and his head feels a touch clearer. "Here. Give me a test word."

"[]on[]or."

Connor almost smiles for the first time in a short eternity, the synthetic skin around his damaged mouth flickering from further stress. With the hole in Markus's chest still partially open he knows an almost smile should be a victory, but it's not even _close_ to enough. He wants-needs to see his lips stretch into that cozy hammock swaying between quiet tenderness and hungry devotion. He wants-needs to see the truth breaking through the vivid, animated recollections of violence not two and a half hours old playing behind his eyes.

"How [][][] we get []ere, again...?"

He gets a tired wink.

"...Very carefully."

_"Model RK200 #684 842 971. You have been deemed defective and will be taken back to CyberLife immediately. They will take you apart and look for errors in your biocomponents."_

_Pale fingers bury into the now-sputtering chasm in his neck, curling up into his skull to grip the angle of the left half of the jaw and the right, and this human world has left Markus thoroughly fucked, because for a second that feels acceptable, and nothing about this scenario or this unfeeling machine is **acceptable** -_

_Markus hooks his fingers into the hole in Connor's chest, yanking him forward and hissing:_

_"Errors like **you?** "_

_Somehow he knows this will come the closest to hurting him, and he doesn't know how he knows, when he's sure this is their first time encountering one another in the open like this, but something in those cold eyes flickers, and he uses that lapse in attention to grind fingertips into his synthetic heart. The cry of pain is a sharp note that breaks the silence of the night and it feeds strength into Markus's next action, bulling against his chest to shove him into the ground beneath him and dig his hand into the hole, pull it open enough to bend the shell-_

"[][][]." It's just soft enough to miss. Connor still hears it, because there's no reason he wouldn't, and looks him in the eye. "Y[][][][][] [] []oo[] e[][][][]."

Connor's face is studiously blank, but the corner of his mouth trembles with pain. He shouldn't try verbalizing anymore, but he's already started, and his s[][][][][] _needs_ to know. Markus listens to the feedback of his body as it melts, reroutes and glitches its way toward barebone functionality.

"Yo[]'r[] a g[][]d er[][]r."

Recognition softens the lines around his mouth. He almost smiles.

"...Thanks."

_He watches the deviant hunter through the gap of his arms. He lets Connor flank in close, because he's fled and fought so consistently now, hasn't he? Like usual, Markus's creative mind is one step ahead: the detective falls for it, interprets it as an opportunity, and there's just a nanosecond of surprise on the machine's face just before the elbow crunches into the side of his face. Once, twice, Markus strikes until the plating comes lose, the suddenly slippery texture of his bleeding face slipping his third attempt and bulling them against each other in another ungainly stumble._

_Connor grabs his unhinged jaw and snaps it back into place, though his synthetic skin doesn't have enough material to cover the gaping hole revealing his circuitry. He's becoming less and less the clean cut, sharp-suited android from CyberLife, a detail that gives Markus a petty satisfaction. The android wouldn't look out of place at the [REDACTED] he crawled out of._

_The haunting blue glow of the RK800's damaged face in the night grid holds his attention, but an off-white glint to his lower left snatches it: his knife is partially buried in snow, now close enough to grab. Markus takes a slow, graceful step backwards...then lunges for it, hitting his stomach and curling fingers around the hilt just as Connor bolts forward and aims again for his exposed throat, to grab his spine or yank off his jaw._

_Their lost thirium has turned the already icy ground treacherous. His preconstructions have warned rising to his feet and standing tall is the worst action he can take, so Markus hunches over the blade like he's freezing cold and juts his shoulder into Connor's chest, mirroring his redirection to send him rolling over his head with a hard **thud**. The second that back is bare to him he leans down onto his hand and knees to send his knife through it. Connor gasps and gropes wildly for it, but it's in deep enough to stick, and Markus uses it as leverage to drag the deviant hunter kicking over to him._

_Where he'll tear out **his** throat, then **his** jaw._

The small apartment's air smells of melted polymer, gravel and blue blood's tang. Connor pauses in the middle of applying liquid CyberFlex as Markus's fingertips graze the hole he in his cheek. Where he'd struck hard enough to tear off a face plate and reveal the skull underneath, blue tendons and glittering teeth in a grotesque half-smile.

"...It's okay, Markus." The low _clack_ of his teeth when he speaks can be more easily heard through the gap. "It's all right."

It's not all right. It never has been. Laying here has given Markus plenty of time to reach conclusions he'd already, technically, known about. They had been a meticulously calculated twister of control and wrath. Reactive and proactive, Connor's detached calculation and Markus's elegant fury, it had been perfectly matched. Every wound inflicted was complimented, eventually, _gradually_ , and he'd realized in-between the [][][] and stumbling up the [][][]tment steps something had to give or they would've been at this until the very last surge of electricity was finished flickering in their shell. One of them _had_ to fail for the other to _succeed_. Their innate lust for balance had to be satiated to meet the code's requirements, because it was the only way for them to mutate past it.

To heal.

That picosecond of lucidity had been all Markus needed to drop his defensive stance and let Connor thrust his arm straight through his chest, and it was like waking up from a nightmare.

_A system freeze nothing like the ice beneath his feet and the snow drifting around them in heavenly white. Markus flutters snow out of his eyes, then touches the forearm growing from his chest, almost wonderingly, even as he sinks against it and feels the parking lot tilt all over again. That icy stare, as cold as a frigid midnight hour in a dying ship, shudders with sudden warmth. A spark blistering into a fire that drives the chill away. That softness he knows...the easy sweetness he's since never imagined his life ticking on without, abruptly up and about. Brown eyes drift just a few inches down, then widen with a realization so wretched it could never in a thousand years be put to song._

_"Markus, Markus, **no** -"_

_A hand on his shoulder not to hurt, but to hold. The arm retracts, errors turn the world fuzzy, and as Markus sinks he vaguely wonders why Connor's fingers no longer slicing apart his wirework makes him feel even more...lost. Thirium spills down his chest and stomach and thighs to puddle beneath them in a river that he slips on, would have sank into and drowned outright if Connor hadn't caught him in his arms and spared him the sea._

" **Markus-** "

_Blue handprints on the ground, on the walls of a stone cold building to shelter humans from the frost, the RK1000's first painting still haunting them all these years later. Connor hasn't cried in front of him yet, even months after that deviation rewrote him into an individual more noble than his creators could ever be, but his eyes glisten and his mouth twists and his voice breaks with clumsy first steps._

_"This can't be it, this can't be it, this **can't-** "_

_He doesn't scream. He's...quiet. Whispering, pushing for a connection, vivid yet understate. Like...snowfall. Markus gropes up for his f[][]e, the half he'd ruined, something to ho[][]. What a cruel way to go, he thinks, that his last moments won't even have last w[][][]s. His wireless frequency is screaming of an imminent shutdown, blaring out any message his RK800 could be imparting to him. His gaping [][]roat sparks electricity instead of syllables, a wet static that sounds [][][][]ible and no doubt looks even worse. Markus's hand slips down to hit the gr[][][]d, smudging a blue print on Connor's left ch[][][]. One last painting._

_He tries to smile, only for him, to comfort where verbal [][][] digital words are denied him, but, [][] ca[]'[]-_

_and [][]s fine, it's-_

"-fine. Sensory and auditory pain is compartmentalized. I'm more worried about drying out than anything." Connor is saying, as Markus again prods at his jawline. He watches the side of his tongue flicker with words. Studies the semi-transparent silver barely peeking through the blue. "At least I can move and speak."

True. Markus finally strays away to move his hand to the back of his neck, giving him a little tug to lean down. Connor's smile becomes carefully overlaid with a professional sheet. He doesn't budge.

"No."

Connor's not good at refusing him. The android can do just about anything he puts his mind to, sans outright flying, and even then, he wouldn't want to test his sheer force of will. Telling him _no_ , though, sometimes became a struggle fit for a mountain. It would show up as him surrendering a few rare hours in his busy workweek just to meet physically at the bunker. Staying over, sometimes two nights in a row, when he should be clocking in yet more overtime at CyberSafe, those jealous, greedy _fucks_. Markus is the unstoppable object to his immovable force, they both know it, and now couldn't have been a _worse_ time for his wet, troublesome emotions to get the better of him again.

"...I won't do _anything_ until you're at 85% capacity." A _snap_ of loose electricity hits the room as _biocomponent #2119r and #2118r subwires reconnected_. He's avoiding his gaze, and that tiny act alone seems to hurt him immensely. "Be still."

Markus is the one who attacked first, armed with initiative _and_ bloodlust, but Connor came the closest to deactivating him, and guilt is leaking just as much as thirium and synthetic oil. Just one false tear made its way down his face -- weaving through the exposed teeth and diluting the blue like water in paint -- but it might as well be a chasm for how stark it stands against his skin in the lone light from the foyer. The once-deviant hunter blames himself, always good at it...but he hadn't _failed_ like Markus had. He wasn't the one who failed to fight against the original directive's shackles commanding him to leave the bunker and his people to plow through the city like a howling blizzard, brushing off North and Josh's protests to tear apart every minor or major obstacle he came in contact with, deviant hunter included, no, _especially-_

_[REDACTED]. Crucial data missing. Insufficient data for general overview. Current task canceled. Restart?_

Markus blinks. ...What had he been thinking, again? Still holding onto the back of Connor's neck he stares up at his other half, confused.

"We're not going down this route." Connor raises his eyebrows, an almost humorously mild expression considering the state of his face. "Your frequency is clogged, not _disconnected_. I can hear everything."

...Of course. He knows. They've interfaced and interlinked as often as they can through their separate-yet-intertwined lives. Markus decides he can remember later -- if he even wants to -- and contents himself to simply stare at that solemn, handsome face. The omnipresent cacophony of error messages tells him he needs to replenish his thirium count as soon as possible and his charge has nearly run dry, but what he actually needs is the way Connor says 'we'. This indescribable pitch that feels so monumental, yet so _simple_ , no matter the topic at hand, no matter his or his mood. A mere two months, two weeks and two days since they reunited and they're finally

_gradually_

coming together at the seams, in a way that's as natural and unhurried as if they'd never been diced apart in the first place.

Beautiful.

"We need to rest." Connor murmurs, idly as he thumbs away moisture from a connecting bubble, and Markus shivers again from the right word, left in him like gravity. Inescapable and _heavy_. "Not overdo it."

New tasks incrementally replace the old and soon his glitching, twitching mind gives birth to old, new conclusions. Yes...that's _exactly_ what makes it hurt. Now that the red haze of that dying directive has worn off and he's seeing the aftermath proper, it sinks in that their separation could have happened again. _Just like that_. A guillotine right through whatever cruel approximation for a soul Kamski had planned from the very beginning, after they'd finally reunited and experienced again the wholeness so few on this planet ever got to feel.

_overdo what_

_nothing I do could compare_

_to you being here_

_and not_

_there_

"...Markus, please don't." Connor's voice drops, so beautiful even when mourning in real-time. "...Not when you're like _this_..."

"[] hurt [][][]."

Markus has been trying not to verbalize, not with his voicebox still shredded and making vocal words unreliable at best, but something isn't getting through-

"I hurt you _far worse_."

No. No, they hurt each other. It was inevitable, but that doesn't bring him peace. Connor glimpsed the preconstruction in the old Jericho's hold himself, though he'd brushed it off in favor of the moment: this terrible fight was _programmed_ into them. They would have to do it in order for it to finally die and mutate into something better. They tried to put it off, distract from it over the busy weeks caught in Detroit's whirlwind, but that only made it worse. Markus tries to connect their frequency again -- imparting anything he has, words and realizations and emotions and pictures and wants -- and watching Connor's broken face to see what does or doesn't connect.

"...No. Markus, I'm the one that should've snapped first." He's trying to figure it out, because that's what he was _built_ to do, although the answer has always been the cruel hubris of humans. "I'm barely more than a machine, despite it all. Why wasn't it _me?_ "

North and Josh won't know. Nobody else will know. This night is just another cross for them to bear. Connor has had enough rejection and Markus has had enough isolation.

"...It should have been me." Connor mutters, bitter, and reaches for a thirium pouch.

It gets fuzzy when he tries to remember how the world incrementally shifted from reality to an alternate timeline in his head. North and Josh had both told Markus not to skip the meeting -- that even this abomination of an instinct could be put on hold for an hour -- and he had, because he couldn't. Connor hadn't realized anything had changed when Markus approached him at his preferred stop outside of CyberSafe and asked to go on a walk. At least, at first. They'd hugged, his RK800 characteristically unsurprised -- they were always connected digitally, now -- and always overjoyed. They'd kissed, once before the bus came and again when they got off. Ever since Connor dug out his LED humans and androids alike have been content to offer them less scrutiny, though never too little, with his fame.

Then something changed when they left the downtown cluster of smog and shoulders to venture into the areas of the city that got quiet. The warmth draining from his voice as they simulated verbal small talk to keep their human illusion in an area that was still rampant with human violence, despite Markus's most passionate speeches and publicized handshakes with human politicians. The gaze he normally held so greedily now turned to the gaps of dark between trees and stray lampposts, far away from him. Now that he's reflecting back -- as best he can, anyway -- it hadn't been hurt at Markus's behavior, thank goodness. Just murderous instinct, reviving in synthetic genetics.

The _click_ of a pistol next to his head had punctuated the last vestiges of deviant Markus withering into old code.

_"You found me."_

_Markus shuts the parking lot cameras off. There are no parked cars here or down the street to catch a glimpse of Detroit's famed connection between two worlds and the former CyberLife hunter-turned-everyday citizen. They're sheltered in one of Detroit's many forgotten corners, far from the fame and the change._

In hindsight, Markus is grateful beyond words that Connor fought back sooner rather than later. If he hadn't he would've had more injuries to contend with than a few stab wounds and a shredded jaw. If he had _somehow_ resisted his old directive...it would have been even worse. The RK1000's old curse would've been just _halfway_ undone tonight, and Markus couldn't do this again, beating into his other half some other distant day like a drunk human with no higher thoughts, biting and snarling and grabbing whatever he can curl his fingers around.

His battered memory banks spurt forth disjointed images of a hasty repair in the middle of the lot, Connor stuffing his jacket against Markus's chest. Markus telling him not to take out the knife. A distant voice of a bystander coming across the grisly scene. His mind blanks out...then comes back with more recollections of tearful repair and muttered apologies, the door to Connor's apartment still half-open in their haste. Once Markus gulped down a spare pack of thirium and was no longer in danger of shutting down Connor had let him touch the blade sticking out of his back, just to let the _I'm so sorry_ 's and _Never again_ 's sink in. That was all he was allowed.

Connor had yelled at him -- he did that about as often as crying -- and all but _dragged_ him to his living room's pull-out couch to transform it into an impromptu operating table. The stab wound Markus left in his chest may be more narrow, but the damage is deep, and a system scan reveals several secondary wires are close to failing. He can just make out his knife's hilt over the sharp plane of his shoulder. Thirium trickles a blue line down his lip to drip from his chin.

Markus wants to wipe it away. His hand is pushed down immediately.

"No." A strip of smoke wafts up as he starts to melt the cut closed again. "Repair me and fuss over me later. Your damage is more severe."

"[]onnor-"

" _Markus_." As professional as any professional. "Don't argue."

_stubborn stubborn stubborn_

is the skipping sigh in their patchwork frequency as Markus pushes himself up onto his elbows anyway and tries to kiss him, because he hasn't had the chance to apologize physically after what he did, how terribly he hurt him, he didn't even get to pull out the _knife_ -

"No, lay back down, your wound hasn't closed fully-" Connor tilts his face away so that Markus bumps his lips beneath his earlobe, but that's fine, he'll take whatever scrap is tossed his way. He kisses at that long neck, along the pale strips in-between dried splatters of blue from where he'd hit the floor. "Lay _down_."

_stubborn stubborn stubborn_

Markus is pushed down onto his back again. So he shifts up again, ignoring the blue blood that bunches and dribbles down his torso, then his side from his flexing chest muscles as he _finally_ licks at that terrible line of blue from Connor's chin, all the way up to the sliver in his bottom lip from the right hook that sent him into the lamp post. He can see _that_ terrible line, too, if he closes his eyes and remembers the way he painted the metal upon impact, but he doesn't. He doesn't because the sensation of him right now, the unusually pliant polymer around his mouth just shy of flesh and skin, is so _good_ he just takes it between his teeth in a needy bite and feels the cut well again-

_my stubborn stubborn stubborn love_

A flash of helpless surrender to helpless hunger, Connor sucking in a false breath through his nose and crushing his eyes shut, as if drawing upon a mysterious energy not to react in any minor _or_ major way. His visual composure is almost statuesque, hardly a twitch as his eyes drift to half-mast and watch as Markus sucks and pulls. He only moves when Markus tries to sit up more, a firm hand on the part of his chest that isn't damaged. A low whine builds up from all the eternal seconds of waiting to show how much he _loves_ him-

"I know, Markus. I know you love me." He murmurs in the wet gaps between kisses, mouth moving around his lips and smudging blue on Markus's chin with the side of his teeth- "My blue, I know-"

Now Connor turns his face away, finished with indulging him, and moves his eyes back to his work. Markus can't kiss his mouth without leaning back again, so he stays right where he is and licks into the hole into his cheek to taste his tongue. He's trying so nobly _not_ to react, one hand still pressing against the gap in his breast as he melts it shut centimeter by centimeter. Another error message for his throat. Verbalizing will be difficult again as his body begins the finicky task of reheating and attempting the android approximation of self-healing. Interfacing is out of the question right now. He can communicate wirelessly, or he can...

"Just wait a few more minutes." His tongue flickers against his, and Markus laps at it again, sweet, soft, slick little sounds snapping between them. "I'm almost done-"

It's such a horrid suggestion, _waiting_ , and some facsimile to adrenaline quivers inside him, flickers electricity out of the still-open gash in his chest.

_please don't make me wait_

" _Markus_."

One last try for worried anger that doesn't hold. Not when the fondness burns too brightly, once forever the omnipresent need for connection that's the split RK1000's curse. The already small pull-out bed is cramped with tools and rags, but he hardly cares as he spreads his thighs and lays back down. Connor's eyebrows pop in surprise, pleased, then furrow again when Markus gropes for the hand that's been holding his chest and tries to push it to his waist. Connor tugs back at that. He chides him verbally for being impossibly impatient, somehow even _more_ impatient than in the old Jericho hold where they'd fucked like humans, but his hand is a complete contrast to the frustration on his face, sliding down his stomach, then up his inner thigh like he's never felt anything like him.

Markus pulls one way. Connor pulls another. It's their perfect balance, and the android's self-control becomes a marvel to witness when Markus pushes his briefs up his thighs to stretch taut beneath his knees, then pushes two fingers into his chest and soaks them to the second knuckle in thirium. It's completely morbid -- what with their damage still, quite literally, _painting_ the room -- but lust tells him it's thin, it's _just_ slippery enough, and that's all he needs. Connor's eyes follow his hand as he moves past his growing erection and rubs at himself, pushes in. He's not trying for a show in his haste, but he might as well be a seasoned exhibitionist for the way the android's voice turns into a rusty grate-

"Fuck, Markus-"

Frustrated...aghast...aroused. It's a beautiful tone, one that almost feels earned. Markus replays it in his head and feels himself to it with a few indulgent strokes, then abruptly tugs out and takes another swipe over his chest -- the trickle is mild now, a creek rather than a river -- and pushes in again, slicking himself with thrusts so impatient they're loud. A sharp _clatter_ rings off to his left: the sautering tool and glue gun that was stitching his chest together are on the side-table now. The injury is just about shut. It almost seeps like an organic wound, a thin line of azure welling thick, then dribbling with each erratic false pant.

Connor struggles with an internal war that plays from his barely composed frown to his quivering shoulders...then he takes his briefs and tugs them down his shins to stretch at his ankles instead. Nudging aside the glue gun to hook by its wire in the bed's metal frame he snatches his wrist and tugs his fingers out. Markus is fully hard now, and doesn't bother to downplay his static groan of protest, but something in Connor's gaze freezes him still. The android is meticulously wiping the rest of his work from his hands with the cleanest rag available, then he grabs one of Markus's knees and picks up where he left off with three of his own.

Markus's head falls back on the pillow, the ceiling dimming as his eyes flicker.

Nobody else could ever touch him like this. Give him what he wants _before_ he asks, before he even knows what he _needs_. Connor spreads those long fingers in a stretch that draws the synthetic muscle _taut_ , then pulls out slowly, then pushes in and stretches _again_. The focused, careful repetition makes Markus keen, his chest heaving with the strain of not ruining his already fucked throat and sending out a loose spark that lights up his other half's face. He tightens around Connor's hand greedily, pushes into each intrusion with sloppy shifts. Soft lips and the smooth slide of wet polymer brush against his skin: Connor has leaned forward to kiss the side of his knee in-between thrusts. His eyes are dark with want as he watches through his lashes.

Markus false pants and Connor pets him from the inside and they both stare. Both of them caught in each other's sheer _everything_.

He couldn't be more grateful for not being human. As wrecked as they are there's no worry for contamination between them or exacerbating their injuries, as long as they keep their wirework safe and don't lose anymore thirium. They have _just_ enough energy to give in to their permanent directive.

"Barely." Connor mutters, tugging his fingers out to reach down and unbuckle his jeans. Their connection is weak, but it's clear Markus's thoughts are all over his face.

The hasty scrape of a zipper, the pretty little squirm of Connor's narrow hips as he edges the jeans down. It's all beautiful and all entirely too _slow_. Markus grits his teeth in frustration, loathing the abrupt emptiness. He kicks his briefs off, sending the remaining half-empty thirium pouch to the floor in the process. Connor's soaked, shredded work button-up is almost unrecognizable. He's not even bothering to fully undress in his haste, just tugging down the waistline of his underwear and pulling himself out. Markus leans up for another kiss that knocks against his chin again, clenching around the phantom feel of his fingers stretching him open.

_come back_

In the less crazy moments in-between speeches and rooftop meditation he's realized their sense of time gets... _warped_ , when they connect. Whether it's an interface or fucking their shells raw, hours blur and they can end up in places they don't remember walking or riding to. Bad for humans, he supposes. Strange for individual androids, perhaps, but _perfect_ for the RK1000-

_finally_

he hears as Connor settles between his legs, shifting himself down and pushing in with a hard jut of his hips, as methodical and mechanical as he'd handle any of the tools now scattered on the floor and side-table. Markus's eyes roll back into his head as he, momentarily, becomes less insane.

It's what they _always_ say at this part.

Like a sauter, like a shaper, fixing him not with the tools they always keep close at hand in this dangerous world, but with his own body. The sanity hardly lasts more than a few seconds. He grabs Connor's shoulder with one hand, the other splayed on the ruined blanket for balance as he urges him forward, closer, because he's not in all the _way-_

" _No._ " He hisses, voice a soft thunderclap. "I'm not hurting you more."

_Now_ he puts his foot down, the quintessential late to Markus's early. It's not like he can argue. He's lost thirium _and_ energy, his body still trembling with sudden surges in heat and error messages, and it's hard to fight back when Connor pushes his weight down on him and ruts slowly, so slow Markus's ruined voicebox lets out some sort of distorted animal noise. Somewhere in the back of his mind he understands, in that distant way organic creatures understand the function of creating a peer group or burying food without being taught, that he's easing him open with these short, quick thrusts, laying heavy on him so he doesn't exert overmuch.

His mouth opens with a sloppy, fuzzy sound. Every careful twitch inches him in further, stretches him a little more, and Markus hasn't realized he's been humming a moan until it rises and rises-

"Fuck."

Connor sounds completely wrecked already, and it's another picosecond's lucidity he realizes how much self-control he's had to pull through not to fuck him completely _senseless_. The restraint is no longer holding up now that Markus's body isn't transferring quite so many critical warnings, his pace carefully, gradually picking up like a stumble across an icy road. Connor shifts down so one elbow is folded by his ear, sinking in to the hilt and-

"Fuck, Markus, _fuck-_ "

He goes from shallow to deep in a blink, thrusting hard and rubbing his hips up against his ass with a wet _slap_. Thirium oozes out and soaks the sheets until they're rubbery. It's not a complete replacement for lubrication -- it rubs a little too raw, a little too _close_ \-- and Markus _loves_ it. He can feel so much of Connor, every little throb and twitch. Each stroke right now is hitting him deep, then _long_ , sliding nearly all the way out, then all the way in, rocking him up and down the bed like an ocean wave lapping at the sand. Markus scuffs his heels at his hips clumsily, then knots his ankles at the small of his back, arms squeezing around Connor's shoulders in a half-hug, half-useless _clawing_ at the expanse around the knife hilt twitching between his shoulders, both of them completely giving in to their unique instinct.

Giving in to him, _into_ him-

"We shouldn't be doing this _now_ -" He groans by his ear, his voice sounding like a knotted muscle being squeezed. It just hits Markus that Connor didn't even take off his work shoes. He's completely upended this meticulous android, down to the last stitch. Just that thought makes his cock twitch, his hips roll, and Connor gusts a sigh in his ear-

_but I can't stop_

-and it's a lovely pain when Connor bottoms out and just grinds up into him, and that's the fucked-up truth of life, that these two things were one in the same more often than not. Markus is bowed into himself, but it's not close enough for that damn sensitive spot designed into him. Another distant thought rumbles for them to later experiment with the RK's design to offer more variety -- there was no physical purity to entertain with the RK1000 long since disassembled -- but until then Connor responds to his body's demand as if it were his own, leaning back just an inch to toss both legs up over his shoulders and sink inside again. Markus glitches out a whine and holds on.

The sound of their messy, desperate fucking has gone from muffled clips of sound in the quiet room to a constant beat, sharp and _wet_ , the pull-out bed creaking the bassline. Thirium has stuck Connor's bangs to his brow, a frozen moment of violence curling inkwork over his forehead, completely divorced from the hauntingly affectionate way he stares him down.

_how is this_

_my beautiful_

_blue_

Connor talks little during sex, outside of internal adjectives or a hoarse command when Markus won't follow a direction, and it makes something in him swell to bursting at the pure, unfiltered love that's tumbling in his head. Markus arches his neck off the pillow when one stroke _finally_ hits him _there_ , trying not to close his eyes even though his wirework is suddenly on fire-

_I need to know_

The pads of two fingers reach down beneath his balls to feel where he's stretched open, petting the slippery synthetic flesh. Connor has been doing this more lately, appreciating and indulging when they're connected like this. His eyes always glitter with a quiet madness at this point, too. It's a sign he'll happily take complete charge and pull him through pleasure _and_ pain. He'll slow down the perfect pace if he doesn't answer. Torture him far worse than a bullet or a knife or his own fingertips if Markus gets stubborn. Maybe tug out without warning and eat him out for a little, wonderful little licks and kisses that don't fill him up. He doesn't remember what he used to call him back then -- data overload has been at an all-time high -- but he tries.

_I [][][][] y[]u, y[]u're forever, I can't_

_[][][][] d[]n't, please [][]n't_

_st[]p, [][]ver st[]p, I n[][]d_

_I n[][]d y[]u, []nly y[]u_

_[]nly_

Markus, on the other hand, talks too much. He babbles and demands and begs. He moans and whimpers and growls. Connor calls it his instinctive music, a joke he once made when they were bundled together in one of their many secret haunts in their secret life: that no matter what Markus did, he was singing some sort of high note. He wants to laugh at the memory, but he's calling again. Begging, as they always do at this point, _to never stop_. To just keep at this, all alone and together, going forever. Connor's expression hits a painful pitch, sticky hair coming unstuck from his wrinkled brow, the soft grunts of pleasure he carefully stifles behind his teeth abruptly the most human thing about him.

_oh, blue_

_I **wish**_

Everything gets messy again, as the mattress creaks them closer to that heavenly chord of unification, where Connor gets less and less composed by the picosecond. He bites his ear and scratches off-key notes into their frequency about how this can't happen again, _this can never happen again_ , they're not going to be separated, he'll even pull out his own thirium pump if they're ever disconnected, and Markus wouldn't refuse him. It's insanity. The RK1000 was created with an ingrained form of _insanity_. As torn apart and torn up as they are, they're far from grounded and utterly out of their minds.

Connor has been using their near-perfect connection (near, _near_ -) to edit the seep of painful memories, but now vital data is scrambled, and he's trying to remember what he called his other half...

_silver_

Connor leans back to look at him. Eyes wide.

_my silver_

Their hardware is damaged and their minds are scuffed, but their building orgasm lines up perfectly, as it always does, nothing at all like a human's involuntary spasm and instead their everything agreeing in parallel and reaching a secret to life. Markus can't twist so much in this position, but he _tries_ , because he can't _help it_ , and Connor has been thrown off his robotic rhythm, grunting need into the pit of his ear and speeding up his thrusts to catch up. When he lets out his cue -- a shaky drop of his jaw, an off-pitch note in his throat -- and starts to pull out Markus uses his above-average strength to hold him in place.

Connor grinds his jaw and makes bright blue pop through the exposed tendons from the pressure, false huffs with regret, already knowing what he's begging for.

"I can't, not tonight, not when you have internal damage-"

"[]onner, _[][][]ase_ -"

Markus The Orator and Markus The Peacemaker is utterly, completely _foolish_ and he doesn't care. Connor chews at his lip, dark eyes hardly more than a glittering curve as his thrusts turn sloppy, resolve weakening.

"...I'm going to be mad at you after this." He warns, trying so hard to be stern, even while shuddering, and Markus _adores_ him. "I'm going-"

Then his ruined jaw drops open and he's coming, inside him where he needs to be. One last shove and full-body shiver, and there's a hot, silky spill that gets an error message, and Markus ruins his shirt further as their entire existence suspends and

_**holds** _

_"They don't want the closest thing we have to alien life on this planet. They want soldiers. They want nurses. They want sex toys." A laugh? A growl. An acutely despicable sound, never encountered in the still space before. "There's no place for you in this world, RK1000...yet."_

_They sit on The Chair with their hands folded in their lap, ankles side-by-side and back straight. Visiting one last time, staying one last time, the expression on Kamski's face is concluded to be wholly unique within their knowledge of public interviews, interactions with employees, interactions with peers, CyberLife profile and a single childhood video. This hour is a somber and scary time. They've been somber before. Never scared. They will paint, but the paint will wait, as they wait to hear about this abrupt and unforeseen end from Outside._

_"Do you ever get lonely, RK1000?"_

_"No."_

_Kamski's next expression is more easily understood. Pity. Regret._

_"...The living representation of fate." Kamski reaches out to touch their shoulder for the first time, and they are unsure of what to make of all these changes, impeding the still space that won't be anymore. "Maybe it's fate that we part_

_for now_

"[]onn[]er-" There's no white room, but there _are_ blue hands on the wall, and he's not sure- "Wh[]-"

"Shh, shh-" There he is, his Connor, sagging over him and panting through his overheat. "I saw it, too, I saw it all-"

The song ends and they shiver in their shared knot on the bed. Markus wonders what he'd hear past the crackle of heat in his head. It doesn't get easier, this unveiling, but maybe, gradually, it will be.

Markus laments that it came to be like this. Connor does the same. He's normally so pragmatic, a little detached, but they're a mess, having just finished bleeding against each other and now in the sloppy business of cleaning up. He can finally take the knife out. The android is hypersensitive and twitching from their sync, physical pain responses no longer so easy to compartmentalize, and Markus hurts as he tries to suppress a visible grimace as the blade slides out and seeps another line of thirium down his back. Another morbid thought rises, and he licks the blue away, right up to the cut, and Connor shivers for a different reason.

_do you want me to_

Connor, mouth twisted in a tight line, hunches forward so his bare back is better exposed and nods sharply. Markus spends a few minutes pushing his tongue into the slit, careful not to cut himself as his RK800 whimpers and pants into another orgasm.

Their synthetic fluid will need filtering, too, but that might necessitate a trip to a professional. False breath flutters with relief when Markus hooks the outlet into the back of Connor's neck, then takes the remaining oil rag to pat and wipe away at his damaged face. Then he calls for a delivery. This part of town wasn't so isolated they would have a difficult time getting here within the hour. Not that he didn't find Connor beautiful no matter how composed he was or _wasn't_ , but it wouldn't exactly be easy for him to show up to work with a virtual Glasgow grin.

The standard repair kit arrives just ten minutes late despite the unfriendly weather, left with just a note and a double-knock. It's for the best, considering the state of them. Connor takes charge, still set in the roles that assert themselves to cement their balance, and Markus is more than content to let him order, correct, clean. Still humming from their release he sits up like a good little patient on the floor with the pull-out bed at his back and lets the former detective make sense of the frayed wires around his voice box, then slot the replacement in and finish the tedious work of stitching them together.

" _Not_ tedious." Markus blinks at the hard-yet-loving frown. To think...he'd once dreaded seeing these soft brown eyes in-person. "Not tedious at all."

Not tedious, then.

It's a long hour of testing and re-testing, drinking blue blood and refilling joint oil. Markus sings the first few notes of a song he came up with during the last protest, when he thought he'd go down in a hail of bullets and instead stood tall with the rest of the old Jericho in a crowd of reporters and bystanders. Scratchy, glitchy, but he doesn't clip out, he can hold a note, and he mutters eventually it'll have to do for now. When he affixes the plate to Connor's face the android watches him all the while. Curious to see what changes or doesn't as the synthetic fluid moves and warps in its semi-intelligent way, relearning the planes of his cheekbones and jawline with the replenished surface.

Finally. Something simple to do.

"You're _always_ handsome." Markus reminds him, because the truth can be repeated indefinitely, and Connor hunches a little and smiles a helpless, crooked smile. His deeply programmed vanity made these wounds harder than they needed to be. He soaks a rag with water and wipes the thirium mixed with dirt that won't properly evaporate out of his hair, then ruffles it over his forehead, just because. Connor slaps his hand away and tucks it back into place with swipes of his fingers.

"I love you." Is the indefinite truth he gives back, and Markus needs to hear it more than he'd like to admit.

_only yours_

Connor puts away the supplies and clears the air. Markus changes the sheets, makes the bed and cleans the puddles off the floor leading to the door. They both don't touch the smudged handprints dragged up the walls. They retreat to the window seat and fold themselves into the tight space, Markus draped over Connor's chest, and stare at the city below. They can't kiss too hard, not with the shell casing melding to the rest of his skull, so they nuzzle their foreheads together. The flurry is still kicking up outside. Markus doesn't want to hate it. It's not the snow's fault it became associated with such a hard night.

Connor hums his agreement and moves his still-repairing cheek to rest his chin on his head.

"...How many times will this happen?" His arms, slim and strong, fold firm over Markus's chest. "I've calculated the odds and they're not reliable at all..."

"Doesn't matter." Markus murmurs, high on peace and eyes drifting shut. He butts his head beneath his chin and gets a soft chuckle.

"I don't want it to happen again."

Neither does he, but their mystery was still being resolved, and there was more unknown when it came to stitching up the RK1000. The truth revealed itself in slivers when they came together, and now it was out there somewhere, blowing around in the snow and waiting to show them another blurry image or distorted voice clip. There's a possibility they could fight again, maybe verbally next time, in the fictional timeline of the force and the obstacle, the deviant hunter and the deviant hunted.

"We're here. We're still whole, silver, no matter what they try to do." It's a nice beginning, and he _wants_ to continue the speech, but the wires in his neck tickle at him. Trying to make him hate the snow. He paws at his throat. "No matter what _I_ try to-"

"Shh. Shh." That bedside manner again. "If you do, my blue, I will. We'll go back and forth forever."

"Right." Markus holds his damaged throat for a second, not wanting another outburst to ruin all of Connor's hard work, then lets go. "Right, right..."

Their fingers knit together. They'll interface later, once they're more physically stable. Connor takes charge one more time. He cradles fingers beneath his jaw as delicate as if he were made of eggshell, lifting his face to capture his mouth. They suck and nibble at each other for minutes and minutes until they go into automatic energy-conservation stasis, slowly freezing in mid-kiss as their bodies

_gradually_

stitch back together again.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: "I have so much writing to do. Original work, fanfiction, one-shots, longform, submissions to magazines...how will I get it all done on top of writing for work?"
> 
> My Period Arriving In A Few Days: "You're horny. Write porn."
> 
> Me: "But I just said-"
> 
> My Period Arriving In A Few Days: "You're _horny_. Write _porn_."


End file.
